At parties at my grandmother’s house, there would always be a point when one of her overly imbibed friends would grab my cheeks, squeeze them between her red-tipped fingers and then pull me into her overflowing bosom and perfumed cloud, all the while extolling my cuteness. Awkward as it was, I would politely smile pretty, thank her and escape to the kitchen where I’d hide behind my mother herself hiding in the corner. And we would stand there, hoping to be ignored still surrounded in that old lady perfume that lingered about me long after grandmother’s friend’s grabby hands had left the room...

Once, as a freshman in high school, I cut school and went to a party at a senior’s house sure my mother would never find out. I was stupid and didn’t realize that cigarette - and other kinds of smoke - could and would wind itself into the fabric of my clothing and between the follicles of my hair. And that even if I wasn't the one smoking - and I wasn't, I swear - hours later, as I sat down to dinner, my mother would sniff out my rule breaking escape with the cool kids and ground me for smoking and skipping school…

When I was twenty, I went on a date with a guy from Nigeria. He was very nice guy named Arizona - no joke- who told me I was beautiful and took me to a fancy restaurant and some Tom Cruise movie and who bathed in so much cologne that my eyes watered the entire date. For some reason, Arizona took my weeping eyes as some sort of emotional sharing and leaned in for a kiss which I very awkwardly had to rebuff because, um, NO. And, despite the date ending abruptly, days and weeks later I could still smell his inappropriate cologne choice on my winter coat because I couldn’t afford to dry-clean the smell off the sucker…

I miss those very malodorous moments because none of those smell clinging moments are as stinking as I am now. But with farts.

I am covered head to toe in fart - Eau de Dog Fart. Which surprising is not, despite its fancy French name, the most appetizing smell to douse your body in. There is fart in my hair. There is fart on my skin. There is fart in my mouth...

I can’t escape it because wherever I go in the house; the fart-producing dogs come too. And, because of the surprise snowstorm we just got, we can’t air out the house or send the fart-producing dogs outside to pollute the air. I will never be able leave the house again because people will assume incorrectly that I’m producing enough gas to run an electric car or pollute the world. A policeman will pull me over and arrest me for being on drugs since my eyes are watery, redder than an apple and I can’t stop sniffing from my imaginary coke habit. I mean I am stoned on fart. Which can’t be a thing. And yet… here I am, high as a smelly kite.

And you know what doesn’t work, Febreze or any variation of smell sucking or covering spray. You know what else doesn’t work? Candles don’t work – not the plain kind, not the smelly kind, not the fruity kind - candles don’t work. And we don’t have just one candle going, we have enough candles lit to be seen from outer space, and not a dent in the fart air has been made.And to add insult to injury, both dogs pooped in the hallway this morning because the snow was too cold to use as a toilet. Seriously. Took them out to do their business, they peed then came inside and pooped ON THE RUG.

Remember when I said I was going to be positive this year, yeah… hard to find a sliver lining in that… Oh wait, here’s one; at least the poop was solid.

That’s what its come to, my friends - AT LEAST THE POOP WAS SOLID.

Off to wash fart out of my hair and then sit as close to a flame as my Afro will let me.